Yaletown Warehouses
Stroll along Mainland, Hamilton and Homer Streets and notice how
the warehouses in Yaletown take advantage of their sloping sites.
The fronts of buildings with office space are located uphill. Downhill
are the loading bays. These working ends of the warehouses were
wide enough for easy unloading of boxcars that used the railroad
tracks running throughout the area until their removal in the 1980s.
Today the docks serve as extensions of adjacent buildings and large
elevated sidewalks with a variety of commercial activity. Reflecting
the unpretentious, workaday function of these buildings, decorative
details are at a minimum and usually limited to the west façades.
Most of the warehouses were built between 1909-1913 and are four
to six storeys high, with internal elevators that were used for
shifting goods. Permanent canopies, cantilevered off the rear of
the buildings, sheltered goods and workers. The one-way streets
were necessary because of the width of the rail cars.
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